Last month, ‘Murderball’ was awarded the American Documentary Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, USA.

The film directed by Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro is about athletes with quadriplegia playing Wheelchair Rugby to overcome obstacles and compete in the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Jeff Mandel, Producer of ‘Murderball’, stated: “This film would not have been possible without the collaboration of the Wheelchair Sports Organizations, the IPC and the rehabilitation hospitals that generously extended themselves to us throughout the three years of production. Mark Zupan, Joe Soares and all the rugby players we met have been great inspirations to us. It was an honour to be able to make a movie about their lives and their sport.”

Jeff Mandel, Dana Adam Shapiro and Henry Alex Rubin at the Sundance Film Festival

The American Documentary Audience Award is sponsored by Volkswagen America and is given to a documentary in Competition or American Spectrum, as voted by Film Festival audiences.

The Sundance Film Festival is known as a celebration of the new and unexpected. More than 30,000 people from 27 countries participated in the festival and enjoyed more than 200 films over the ten-day programme.

As one of the biggest projects of the Sundance Institute, founded by Robert Redford in 1981, the Sundance Film Festival is held each January and is considered the premier showcase for American and international independent film.

For more information please visit www.sundance.org.